I guess I decided I didn’t

I pulled a blonde hair from under my chin just now. I didn’t have to pull hard; it came just like that. I guess I decided I didn’t need that hair anymore. This was a thought I had while reckoning that I know very little about being a politician and that I was wrong before. Let me explain. In my last post I mentioned that politicians have no idea what they’re doing. That, my friend, is absolute rubbish. If Bobby Cassidy were here (name changed for anonymity) he’d have every right to toss me a good one on the back of the head for that shite.

Have you done this, my friend? This blurting out of opinions that you have not taken the time to substantiate but that you have the beginning of an idea about? I know I’m not alone on this. (I just watered my plant.) It’s like, because you are a bit too lazy in a particular moment you choose to sculpt a loose shell of the idea and summarize it into a bogusly watery statement like, "politicians have no idea what they’re doing." Please. That’s just silly. As my Dad would say while sending me a mocking right hook to the shoulder, "use your words, Monica."

So, I talked about politicians having no idea what they’re doing. I disagree with myself. Ahha! Take that, Mon Dieu! Here’s why: I have long questioned whether the professionalization of politics has corrupted it. By that I mean that aside from trusty Ronnie Reagan and a smallish handful of others, today’s American politicians are rarely reputable figures from the community with a prior non-political profession under their belts that rose them to fame. No, in today’s insanely complicated political world of intelligence, nuclear weapons, thousands of years of history stacked upon itself, grudges, countless wars, etc., politics is usually conducted by professionals who have been trained to be just that. And I can see why. It’s a commodified world out there. When my teeth need fixin I don’t go to an amateur, I go to a pro. The market (and our voting habits are a market) really wouldn’t let a non-professional do a professional’s job. Now I’m not saying professional means honest, nor am I saying that professional means worthy (ie: Bush), but I am saying that it makes sense that we would want folks who were specifically experienced in politics to be our politicians. So even as I realize this is a huge topic and I’m not covering all my bases, I must confess it is inaccurate to say that politicians don’t know what they’re doing. Of course a lot of them know what they’re doing, they must.

Politicians won’t stop what they’re doing because they don’t exist in a vaccuum. Despite the fact that everyone likes Mister Smith Goes To Washington because it was a great story, and many sure do enjoy the idea that a fresh, innocent face like Barack Obama could rid us of some crooked aspects of modern-day politics. Still, it is unlikely. I just don’t even know what that would look like in this era.